The ACC announced today that they will play a nine game conference football schedule when Pittsburgh and Syracuse join the league. The two schools are currently slated to join the ACC in 2014.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford also announced today that Syracuse will join the Atlantic Division and Pittsburgh will join the Coastal Division. Current ACC division crossover games will remain intact, while Pittsburgh and Syracuse will become crossover partners.

When Pitt and Syracuse join the ACC, the league will play a nine-game conference schedule. The format will consist of each team playing all six in its division each year, plus its primary crossover partner each year and two rotating opponents from the opposite division. This six-year cycle allows each team to play each divisional opponent and its primary crossover partner six times (three home and three away) while also playing each rotating crossover opponent two times (one home and one away).

“We have been engaged in discussions on the various options for integrating Pitt and Syracuse since early fall,” said ACC Commissioner John Swofford. “It’s a tremendous tribute to the leadership at our schools that we will be able to seamlessly add Pitt and Syracuse at the appropriate time when they become full playing members.”

With the addition of Pittsburgh and Syracuse, here is how the ACC Atlantic and Coastal Divisions will look:

Kaleb Nickell

Susan

Is anyone else frustrated with the ACC’s practice of putting fans last in scheduling decisions? You cannot plan to attend a football game, stay overnight, or see friends with such short notice of actual game times. TV revenues come first, fans last these days. It is past Valentine’s day and we are still waiting for the fall schedules so we can schedule other events.

ORANGEPAW

AGREE 100% The ACC leadership SUCKS!! We need a North/South division. Each division would have more common rivals. With VT,Pitt,BC and (Virginia and Maryland) will be VERY competitive in a year or two. Maimi has done nothing!! so in the South you have Clemson, FSU, GT, UNC,NCST..SOUND EQUAL TO ME….Plus ALOT BETTER FOOTBALL !!!!

Chip

pa

these divisions are so confaluted, the acc changed how many years ago and I still can’t tell you how it aligns. I know in the pac12 all the schools want games in southern california so Im sure all the schools want access to games in florida. still I think I like apples schedule other than put unc in the north and wf in the south, unc is generally a stronger team so that would balance a little more.

David

They’re trying to keep the original contacts in tact. When they expanded the north carolina block was to be split in two because those were the weakest teams at the time and miami and fl state were to be different divisions because of the championship game predictions. If 16 teams ever come there would be a huge realignment. After that everything was decided by tv and recruiting markets.

Chip

I’m not convinced that moving to nine-game conference schedules is a good idea. It provides far less flexibility for teams to either strengthen or weaken their overall schedule (depending on how good or bad they are) and on the expansion front, it provides a strong disincentive for Notre Dame to consider joining the ACC.

Given that, I’d also have different divisions. I’d like North-South but it would just be too unbalanced. I’d probably do one of these two setups (rivals listed together):

bluehokie2006

The major downside to a North/South division is that it would recreate the old Big East in the north, but add Maryland and UVA, which I’m sure would piss both of them off. Meanwhile, I’m sure VT and BC don’t want to go back to playing the same teams they did in the Big East days, because that was part of the reason for moving.